Architect escapes ARB penalty after 'exceptional' house demolition

The Architects Registration Board (ARB) has decided not to punish an architect who was fined £12,000 for demolishing a house in a conservation area in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, last year.

The board’s professional conduct committee claimed John Whalen’s case ‘was exceptional’ and said it would not be issuing the architect with any further penalty on top of that already handed to him by St Albans Crown Court last November.

Having heard ‘evidence and mitigation’ as to why the architect, of Whalen and Clarke Project Management, had allowed the bulldozing of 25 West Common Way, the board said additional punishment would not have been ‘appropriate’.

The news will be welcomed by Quinlan Terry, who is also expected to facing the board’s conduct committee later this summer after pleading guilty in November to charges of demolishing John Nash-designed gate houses in Regent’s Park.

It is understood Terry could launch an appeal against the £25,000 fine he received from Westminster Magistrates for knocking down the Grade II-listed 1827 buildings.

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